Isaiah 13-17

GOD’S WORD Translation

⁶ Cry loudly, for the day of the Lord is near.
It will come like destruction from the Almighty.
⁷ That is why every hand will hang limp,
and everyone’s courage will fail.
⁸ They’ll be terrified.
Pain and anguish will seize them.
They’ll writhe like a woman giving birth to a child.
They’ll look at one another in astonishment.
Their faces will be burning red.

⁹ The day of the Lord is going to come.
It will be a cruel day with fury and fierce anger.
He will make the earth desolate.
He will destroy its sinners.
¹⁰ The stars in the sky and their constellations
won’t show their light anymore.
The sun will be dark when it rises.
The moon won’t shine.

¹¹ I will punish the world for its evil
and the wicked for their wrongdoing.
I will put an end to arrogant people
and humble the pride of tyrants.
¹² I will make people harder to find than pure gold
and human beings more rare than gold from Ophir.
¹³ I will make heaven tremble,
and the earth will be shaken from its place
when the Lord of Armies is angry.
At that time he will be very angry.

¹⁴ They’ll be like hunted gazelle
and like sheep with no one to gather them.
Everyone will return to his own people
and flee to his own land.
¹⁵ Whoever is found will be stabbed to death.
Whoever is captured will be executed.
¹⁶ Their little children will be smashed to death right before their eyes.
Their houses will be looted and their wives raped.

¹⁷ I’m going to stir up the Medes against them.
They don’t care for silver and aren’t happy with gold.
¹⁸ But their bows will smash the youth.
They’ll have no compassion for babies,
nor will they look with pity on children.

¹⁹ Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms,
the proud beauty of the Chaldeans,
will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God destroyed them.
²⁰ It will never be inhabited again,
and no one will live in it for generations.
Arabs won’t pitch their tents there.
Shepherds won’t let their flocks rest there.
²¹ Desert animals will lie down there.
Their homes will be full of owls.
Ostriches will live there,
and wild goats will skip about.
²² Hyenas will howl in Babylon’s strongholds,
and jackals will howl in its luxurious palaces.

Its time has almost come.
Its days will not be extended.

³ When that day comes, the Lord will give you relief
from your pain and suffering,
from the hard slavery you were forced to do.
⁴ Then you will mock the king of Babylon with this saying,
“How the tyrant has come to an end!
How his attacks have come to an end!”
⁵ The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked,
the scepter of rulers.
⁶ They struck the people with fury,
with blows that didn’t stop.
They ruled nations in anger,
persecuting them without restraint.
⁷ The whole earth rests and is peaceful.
It breaks out into shouts of joy.
⁸ Even the cypresses rejoice over you.
The cedars of Lebanon say,
“Since you have fallen,
no lumberjack has come to attack us.”

⁹ Sheol below wakes up to meet you when you come.
It wakes up the ghosts of the dead,
all who were leaders on earth.
It raises all who were kings of the nations from their thrones.
¹⁰ All of them will greet you,
“You also have become weak like us!
You have become like one of us!”
¹¹ Your pride has been brought down to Sheol
along with the music of your harps.
Maggots are spread out ⌞like a bed⌟ under you,
and worms cover you.

¹² How you have fallen from heaven, you morning star, son of the dawn!
How you have been cut down to the ground, you conqueror of nations!
¹³ You thought,
“I’ll go up to heaven and set up my throne above God’s stars.
I’ll sit on the mountain far away in the north
where the gods assemble.
¹⁴ I’ll go above the top of the clouds.
I’ll be like the Most High.”
¹⁵ But you’ve been brought down to Sheol,
to the deepest part of the pit.
¹⁶ Those who see you stare at you; they look at you closely and say,
“Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook the kingdoms,
¹⁷ who made the world like a desert and tore down its cities,
who didn’t let his prisoners go home?”

¹⁸ All the kings of the nations, all of them,
have been buried with honor, each in his own tomb.
¹⁹ But you are thrown out of your tomb like a rejected branch.
You are covered with those who were killed in battle.
You go down to the stones of the pit like a trampled corpse.
²⁰ You won’t be joined by the kings in the tomb,
because you have destroyed your land and killed your people.

The descendants of the wicked will never be mentioned again.
²¹ Prepare a place to slaughter their sons
because of their ancestors’ guilt.
They won’t be able to rise, possess the earth,
and rebuild cities all over it.

²² “I’ll rise up against them,” declares the Lord of Armies.
“I’ll cut off the name of the survivors from Babylon,
its offspring and descendants,” declares the Lord.
²³ “It will become the possession of herons.
It will become pools of water.
I’ll sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of Armies.

²⁶ This is the plan determined for the whole earth.
This is how he will use his power against all the nations.
²⁷ The Lord of Armies has planned it. Who can stop it?
He is ready to use his power. Who can turn it back?

³¹ Cry loudly in the gate!
Cry out in the city!
Be frightened, all you Philistines!
Smoke comes from the north,
and there are no stragglers in its ranks.
³² How should we answer the messengers from the nations?
⌞Tell them that⌟ the Lord has laid Zion’s foundation,
and his humble people will find refuge in it.

³ Give us advice.
Make a decision.
At high noon make your shadow as dark as night.
Hide the fugitives.
Don’t betray the refugees.
⁴ Let the fugitives from Moab stay with you a while. Be their refuge from the destroyer.
Ruthless people will come to an end.
The destruction will end.
The one who tramples others will be gone.
⁵ Then the Lord will set up a trusted king.
He will rule faithfully.
He is from the tent of David.
He judges and searches for justice.
He is quick to do what is right.

⁶ We’ve heard of the arrogance of Moab’s people.
They are very arrogant.
We’ve heard of their boasting, arrogance, and conceit,
but their boasts aren’t true.
⁷ That is why Moab will wail.
Everyone will wail for Moab.
Mourn and grieve over the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth.
⁸ The fields of Heshbon and the vineyards of Sibmah wither.
Rulers of the nations have cut off their grapes.
The grapevines ⌞once⌟ reached as far as Jazer
and strayed out into the desert.
Their shoots had spread out over the sea.
⁹ I will cry for the grapevines of Sibmah
as Jazer cries for them.
I will drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh.
The shouts of joy for your ripened fruits
and your harvest will be silenced.
¹⁰ Joy and delight have vanished from the orchards.
No songs are sung.
No shouts are raised.
No one stomps on grapes in the winepresses,
because I have put an end to the shouts of joy.
¹¹ That is why my heart mourns for Moab like a harp.
My soul mourns for Kir Hareseth.
¹² When the people of Moab appear at the worship site,
they will only wear themselves out.
They will come into the holy place to pray,
but they won’t be able to.

⁴ “When that day comes, the honor of Jacob’s people will fade away,
and they will become skin and bones.
⁵ That time will be like harvesting bundles of grain by the armful.
It will be like gathering grain in the Rephaim Valley.
⁶ Only a few people will survive.
They will be like an olive tree that has been beaten.
Only two or three olives are left
at the top of the highest branch,
four or five olives on the rest of the branches,”
declares the Lord God of Israel.

⁷ When that day comes, they will look to their maker,
and their eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.
⁸ They won’t look to the altars made by their hands
or to the Asherah poles or incense altars
which their fingers molded.

⁹ When that day comes, the fortified cities
which other people abandoned because of the Israelites
will be like abandoned woods and undergrowth.
So it will become a wasteland.

¹⁰ You have forgotten the God of your salvation.
You haven’t remembered the rock, your stronghold.
Instead, you have planted the best plants
and have set out the imported grapevines.
¹¹ On the day you plant, you will make it grow.
On the morning you set out the seedling, you will make it sprout.
But the harvest will become a [rotting] pile ^[e]
on a day of grief and incurable pain.

¹² How horrible it will be for many people!
They will roar like the roaring sea.
The noise that the people make
will be like the noise from rushing water.
¹³ The people will make noise like raging water.
But the Lord will yell at them, and they will run far away.
They will be chased away
like husks on the mountains being blown by the wind,
like whirling dust being blown by a storm.
¹⁴ In the evening there will be sudden terror.
Before morning they will be gone.
This will be the fate of those who looted us,
the destiny of those who robbed us.